KARACHI, March 16: Chairman of the National Transport Ittehad Salim Khan Bangash has announced revised transport fares which would be effective from March 20, and vowed to implement his organisation’s decision with or without the Sindh government’s approval.

According to the NTI decision, the revised bus fare will be Rs9, Rs10, Rs11 and Rs12 for 5, 10, 15 and over 15 kilometres, respectively whereas minibus fare will be Rs10, Rs11 and Rs12 and Rs13 for 5, 10, 15 and over 15 kilometres. Coaches will charge Rs14 for 15 kilometres and Rs15 for over 15 kilometres. Auto-rickshaw, taxi and yellow cab fares will be increased by Rs3 per kilometre.

Justifying the decision, Mr Bangash said that the government had raised petrol price by Rs9.11 per liter and diesel rate by Rs6.39 per liter within a month. He said the fuel prices had gone up to an alarming level but the transporters in Karachi had not increased the fares since May 2005. He pointed out that transporters in the interior of Sindh and Punjab had increased the fares by 100 per cent since than.

Meanwhile, leaders of the Karachi Transport Action Committee and Anjuman Ittehad-i-Bus Malikan, Karachi, have condemned the fresh hike in POL prices and urged the government to allow an increase in transport fares.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Mohammad Ashraf Banglori, Chaudhry Mazhar Hussain, Lala Sultan, Tanzim Khan and Nazir Banglori said that the repeated raise in POL prices over the past few years had already been causing losses to transport operators and the fresh hike announced on Thursday were bound to cause them further losses. They said the transporters would be compelled to go on a strike if government did not allow increase in fares with immediate effect.

Condemning the government for increasing POL prices at an abnormally high proportion twice in a month, the Jamaat-i-Islami, Karachi chapter, has termed the move an “anti-people step”. JI Secretary Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman said here on Sunday that the fresh hike in petroleum prices was bound to push up rates of almost all essential goods, multiplying woes of common man.